


A Nest of Broken Twigs

by ladyknightanka



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Family, Fluff, Implied Relationships, Innuendo, M/M, Multi, Schmoop, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknightanka/pseuds/ladyknightanka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam has finally come of age in angelic society. How is he going to choose just one mate when there are three powerful ties to his grace? Angel AU. Boys have wings and halos. Wing grooming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Nest of Broken Twigs

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://ladyknightanka.livejournal.com/19765.html). It's a oneshot, but I had fun writing it, so there might be more. :)

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A Nest of Broken Twigs

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“They're beautiful,” Sam tells Adam earnestly, his large but gentle hands carding through the honey-colored feathers that comprise his brother's wings, starting from the pale, tiny pinions at the base and growing steadily thicker. When Adam merely mumbles in reply, his face pressed into his hugged knees, Sam's smile falters. “What's wrong?” he inquires, worried now.

It isn't unfounded for him to be concerned. In angelic society, all fledglings are born with white feathers, blank slates to metamorphose with their own identity. It is only when they mature that they come into their natural plumes, which Adam finally has, and this entitles him to take his grace-mate, to build a 'nest' of his very own.

“Nothing,” Adam replies. His dejected tone, however, implies otherwise.

Sam's fingers still, spanning down to rest on the jut of his brother's hips, his own wings, huge and the color of molten dark chocolate, blanketing around them both. He lets his chin fall on top of Adam's head, within the circle of his sparkling halo, and feels the huff that reverberates through the younger angel. “What's wrong?” he asks again. “Are you...does your mating with Michael make you unhappy?”

Adam shakes his head furiously. Hair a bit darker than his feathers tickles Sam's throat. “No! Father, no! Michael is...well, he's the Holy Sword, Heaven's Prince. Why wouldn't I be happy?”

“It's possible,” Sam says. “I know you were still a fledgling in your mother's care then, so you may not remember, but I wasn't exactly pleased when Morning Star first claimed me as his. In fact, Dad and I had one of our biggest blowouts yet.”

A strange mix of emotions courses over Adam's face: sadness at the memory of Kate, whose garrison of healers had long since dispersed back into the Collective after a rogue demon attack; the irritation he and Sam shared toward their absent father; mostly, however, shock.

When his mother died, Adam came under Sam's care. Their father was always busy, while Dean and Castiel, his eldest brother and his mate, were constantly in danger, as warriors in Michael's fleet. Sam was the only one able and willing to raise his orphaned half-brother. Adam had only ever felt love in the bond between Sam and his mate, the illustrious Lucifer, brother to Adam's own pledged.

“You're happy now, though, aren't you?” he asks Sam, who nods against his scalp, making Adam smile at the sensation. “I-I think I could be happy, too, Sam. I think I could come to love Michael very easily. It did annoy me that he simply _told_ Dean and Dad that he wanted me, that they let him claim me like I was a _thing_ , but he's been trying to win me over since then. He took me to Earth for the first time to watch a human ball game. A-and I feel something between us, a _connection_ in our grace. We could be happy.”

Sam smiles into his brother's hair, not quite a kiss, and squeezes his arms around Adam's lithe frame. “If he's anything like Lucifer, you _will_ be,” he promises, allowing Adam to melt back into him. They stay like this for a minute or a year, the warmth of their grace a comfort to them both, till a knock and a new voice interjects.

“What are you two odd birds doing in there now?” Lucifer inquires through the door. “Adam, I've brought you your dashing mate. Shall Michael and I come in?”

“No!” Adam exclaims, flushing as he extricates himself from his brother.

Sam smiles because he knows from his mate's teasing inflection that this was the intention, to rile Adam up the way Lucifer always enjoys doing, but he calms the younger angel down with a heartfelt, “You look fine, Adam. Your wings are beautiful. How can Michael resist till the halo exchanging ceremony?”

Adam darkens further, but smirks and preens, somewhat forced. “Beats me. Haven't been taking it easy on him, to be honest.”

“Attaboy,” Sam laughs. He stands slowly, letting his now unfurled wings balance his body out, and helps Adam rise, watching with affectionate eyes his younger brother's attempt to straighten his hair, feathers and clothes into some semblance of acceptable. “You can come in, Luce. I know you're eavesdropping, you devil.”

Lucifer enters in his usual melodramatic way, his larger than life wings, the only wings in existence that are a pure silver-white even in maturity, bursting every which way. He passes by Sam and drops a peck on his lips, but it's Adam's hands he makes a grab for, his pale blue eyes, paler even than the young angel's, gleaming with pride.

“My, my, my,” he murmurs, “I really picked the wrong brother, didn't I?”

Sam swings his wing out and swats his mate playfully. Lucifer and Adam both laugh. Adam's hitches, however, when someone else knocks on the door hinge. The three angels turn to find Michael, his green eyes flitting from Lucifer to Adam, his lips curled fondly.

“If you could kindly return my pledged, brother?” When Lucifer does, still chuckling, Michael replaces the other archangel's frigid hands with his own sultry ones, interlacing his fingers with Adam's. “You do look a picture today.”

“Whatever that means,” Adam says, rolling his eyes, yet his usual sarcasm is tempered in the holy general's presence, which both lifts Sam's spirits and clenches his grace into an almost painfully constricted ball.

Michael looks to his and Adam's respective brothers, who nod in tandem, then allows one of his wings, a gold more lustrous than the most priceless of treasures, to settle around Adam's body, gargantuan enough that it encompasses the younger angel wings and all, and Adam burrows into his heat.

Sam is gifted a final grin before his little brother focuses on his pledged completely. “And how will you woo me today, Oh Holy Saint? The souls of a fallen battlefield, ice skating on a ring of Saturn, perhaps a strip club?”

Michael laughs, more subdued than Lucifer's lively utterances, and it's the last thing Sam hears of the two, prior to the flight of their wings. He lets Lucifer lay an arm across his shoulders and accepts a deeper kiss.

“What's the matter?” the archangel murmurs against his lips.

Sam tries to answer and is ashamed to find that he's slightly choked up. “It's just...he's been _mine_ for so long. Dean is already under Michael's charge. They travel the known worlds, fly farther than any angel, and I know Raphael is delighted to have Adam learn healing under her, the way his mother did. Where will they take him? How far? When will I get him back? He was _mine_ , Lucifer.”

When Lucifer doesn't immediately respond, Sam fears he's said too much. He knows his mate is fond of Adam, that Lucifer accepted him into their fold when he didn't have to, and he also knows that Lucifer must have felt their burgeoning bond, stronger than an angel generally has with even an original nest-mate. He's _Lucifer_ , after all, among the two most powerful angels since antiquity. His grace can smite Sam and both of his brothers from existence in a blink, if he perceives a betrayal or threat.

Instead, Lucifer presses a cold nose into Sam's cheek and Sam can _feel_ his leering lips shifting there. “Don't fret, Sam. I know it's hard, as it's _all_ you do, but Michael is as much mine as Adam is yours. If anything, I'd like to think I have a claim to your little bird, as well. And someday, perhaps even someday soon, when they grow tired of beating their wings, we'll be here with a ready nest, no more a cage to their spirits. Who knows, even Dean might be welcome.”

It's the wry way he adds the last comment that settles it for Sam. He grins wide and turns to capture his mate's mouth. “I love you, Lucifer.” If there's no imminent reply, it's only because Lucifer has better ways of reciprocating that it's probably best no one in their family can see.

  


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The End!

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